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SINGING TREES 


Peet | Bel LON OF 


ver RA. PAINTINGS 


Dos 


Weel TER BE.CK 


MARCH 57x To 24TH, 
1925 


GRAND CENTRAL ART GALLERIES 
15 VANDERBILT AVENUE 
NEW YORK 





THE WAY 


Copyright, 1925 
by Walter Beck 


THE ART OF WALTER BECK 
By Ratpyx FLint 


| | boi now and again there appear on the human 


horizon figures of particular import, visionists with 
word of special weight, workers with gifts of un- 
usual consequence. Among such must be placed Walter 
Beck, American painter. In his present estate, fresh from 
Roman triumphs, he comes home to claim a new place in 
a world of art which knew him once, but knew him only as 
unsuspécting precursor to this later self. His record, prior 
to a few short years ago, deals conventionally with mu- 
seum, gallery, patron, with large commissions and accom- 
plishments. Today, however, his art is so far removed from 
all that as to be a thing apart, related sequentially and 
legally perhaps but wholly independent of school, place, 
or period, a transcendental and full-blown manifestation 
of new form and beauty. In an age beset with greater di- 
vergencies of artistic beliefs than ever before, Beck comes 
like some seer whose tablets have been touched with the 
“divine fire,’ like some prophet testifying with an un- 
wonted authority. He stands beside the very considerable 
product of these few new years of his a veritable bearer 
of good tidings, of pictorial tidings so joyous to the eye 
and heart that the question naturally arises if a miracle 
has not come to pass. 
These boldly complexioned affirmations are set down 
with a full appreciation of the facts. To those accustomed 
only to the conventional in painting, Beck’s art may not be 


iWin Ae lols telat ce Live a x B= Ey Caer 


immediately apparent. Those who see painting as a means 
of trapping pictorial circumstance with photographic 
mesh may find these productions abstruse, remote. Yet his 
most symbolic and esoteric compositions are filled with 
such fresh, assertive form, with such clear and flowing 
color under fleetest brushmanship that there is something 
pleasurable to be got from them by all. This union of 
deeply significant form and handling with an almost dis- 
arming spontaneity of execution is one of the outstanding 
qualities of Beck’s art, for while these paintings are made 
at a single sitting in a tempera medium that permits of no 
retouching or alteration once the pigment has set, there is 
depth of meaning put into the work that is out of all 
proportion to the time element. It is almost as if they 
were shot from some high-strung bow, and came all 
quivering and alive to the paper target, a succession of 
pictorial bull’s-eyes that puts Beck hors concours from 
the start. 

There is no real parallel between these paintings and 
most contemporary work. Except with certain more or 
less remote phases of art Beck has little in common. The 
great Chinese painters of the past had the same instinctive 
sense of searching for the essential idea under its material 
sheathings, of striving to give pictorial utterance to a 
belief in that universal permanency of all things which 
Spencer defines as the only reality. Like the Italian primi- 
tives in their expression of religious rapture, he achieves 
certain spatial effects of exceeding importance; and while 
there is no direct comparison possible except in the way of 
pictorial significance, such names as Tintoretto, expounder 


Vee eT 6B GR soe, SS 


of magnificent themes, Turner, super-sensitive and heaven- 
storming landscapist, his metaphysical amanuensis, John 
Ruskin, and perhaps the fiery Blake occur in reviewing 
this manifestation of twentieth century genius. 

Beside these purely pictorial qualifications, the range 
of Beck’s sympathy and philosophic reasoning must be 
considered in order to reach any true estimate of his work. 
In these paintings he traverses the humanities at will, and 
runs the gamut of mythological and scriptural lore both 
oriental and occidental. He can be satiric on occasion, or 
playful; often he is humorous, often grim. He pictures 
“Venom” with a few serpent-like swirling strokes of green 
over a sienna ground that strikes to the very root of that 
baneful state. His “Tenebrae” appears the sublimation 
of all shadowy vales and brooding wings, and in his 
“Energy” is seen a springing patch of fiery form that 
almost dazzles. “Mist Fairies” is a gentle, swirling 
glimpse of lymphatic figuration as only comes in reedy 
music. “Sleep,” “Sloth,” “Tremolo,” “Arabesque,” “Urge,” 
“Singing Trees,” “Youth” and “Sorrow,” are a few of 
the simpler subjects which have come unerringly from 
his seemingly inexhaustible quiver. There is a host of 
mythological subjects to dwell on, and the Chinese sub- 
jects are of a rare delight. 

Everywhere in Beck’s art a deep spiritual note is 
sounded, whether in abstractions like “Elevation of the 
Spirit” and “Triumph of Good Over Evil” or in his 
illustrations of the Savior’s life. ““Gift of the Madonna,” 
“The Holy Grail,” “Sandals of the Lord,” “The Voice,” 
“Let There Be Light,” “The Ascension” — these and many 


VV eats Ata elvan Deen koe BY SESS Gas 


others embody a vision of the highest order, are pictorial 
revelations of a degree that seldom occur in western art. 
Beck’s work often falls into pictorial sequences and in the 
series dealing with music, he has produced symbolic de- 
signs of peculiar poignancy. The music of the violin, the 
viola, the cello, the cymbals, the piano, the organ, each 
different manifestation of sound has been captured with 
astonishing precision. -But the climax of his art comes in 
his interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer, which he has 
pictured line by line with transcendent power. His mag- 
nificent organization of form and brushwork finds its 
highest expression in the next to the last of this series, 
and his exalted quality of pictorial thought rises highest 
in the final “Forever and Ever.” 

It only remains to say in conclusion that Walter Beck 
stands in the very fulness of his powers, and that in the 
seclusion of his Hudson River home he will continue 
reaching out towards new aspects of beauty and form. 
In the more than seven hundred paintings already from 
his hand in these few recent years it is remarkable to find 
practically no note of repetition, either in color, composi- 
tion, or thought. Small wonder that an art like this should 
find immediate recognition from the Italian public, so long 
trained to understand pictorial revelation, and it seems 
likely that his unique art will find an even greater response ~ 
in his own country where independence of thought has 
ever been encouraged. Art with Walter Beck has come back 
into its original estate, as a profession of faith, a record of 
aspiration and longing. This in itself is highest praise. 


O ONYAnWBRON&] 


Wie aeeee tet bo ER 


CATALOGUE OF PAINTINGS 


Afterglow 

The Sigh 

Rhea 

On the Slopes of Parnassus 
Sleep 

In the Presence 

The Soul 


‘Madonna 


Spiritual Efforescence 

The Holy Grail 

Floating Rhythms 

Energy 

Tannhauser on His Way to 
Rome 

Thetis on Olympus Inter- 
ceding for Achilles 

Aurora Borealis 

The Moth 

The Expulsion 

The Golden Apple 

Will o’ the Wisp 

Penelope and the Suitors 

Venom 

The Curious One 

Sea Change 

Winter 

Above the Battlefield 

Mnemosyne 

The Fates 

From a Distant Clime 

Tenebrae 

Circe 

The Good Shepherd 

Golden Cascades 

Oedipus and the Sphinx 

Tremolo 

The Signal 

Emphatic Nereid 


Pan 

The Ornate Headdress 

Arabesque 

Sloth 

Iphigenia 

The Philosopher 

Vampire 

The Erinyes 

Little Nereid 

Diana 

Lorelei 

Ulysses and the Siren 

Self-control 

“The Hills of Dream” 

Singing Trees 

St. Michael 

An Encounter 

Lan t’sai Ho 

Lyric Cadences 

Mist Fairies 

Pluto and Persephone 

Landscape 

The Diverse Urges of 
Youth 

In the Thralldom of Evil 

Chinese Dragon 

Youth 

Hermes 

The Miraculous Voyage 

Li Po 

Treasure 

Dreams 

Penthesilea Victorious 

Aurora 

Exaltation of Spirit 

Soft Grasses of the 
Marshes, Moonlit 


MUSIC 
Viola 76 
Overtones ap; 
Brahms’ Music 78 
Violin 79 
ESOTERICS 

Worship 96 
Sandals of the Lord 
Let There Be Light 97 
The Voice in the Garden 
The Gift of the Madonna 98 
The Church 99 
The Ascension 100 
Guardians of the Spirit 
The Way 101 
Wisdom 102 
The Triumph of Good 

Over Evil 103 
Sublimation 104 
Lightof Unbounded Spaces 105 
Life 106 
Holy, Holy 107 
The Voice of the Cathedral 108 


Cello 
Cymbals 
Piano 
Organ 


“Have Ye Not Known, 
Have Ye Not Heard” 
“Lo, He Goeth By Me 
and I See Him Not” 

The Religious Instinct 

“IT Am the Vine” 

“Tf I Take the Wings of 
the Morning” 

“Fear Not” 

“The Coming Forth In 
Day” 

The Miracle of the Heart 

“My Cup Runneth Over” 

Faith 

Grace 

“God Isa Spirit” 

Rhea 


THE LORD’S PRAYER 
Our Father Who Art in Heaven 


Hallowed Be Thy Name 
Thy Kingdom Come 


Thy Will Be Done on Earth as It Is in Heaven 
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread 


Forgive Us Our Trespasses 


As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us 


Lead Us Not Into Temptation 


Deliver Us from Evil 
Thine Is the Kingdom 
The Power 
The Glory 


Forever and Ever 





GOLDEN CASCADES 


HILNOA AO SANUN ASUAAIC AHL 





OISAW SNWHVUE 





AUdId NVA 








LIFE 





Printed in U. S. 
by eo. 
Bartlett Orr Pres ay 
New York it 











